Higgs Boson, part 4

"The Higgs field is like the air, or the water for fish in the sea; we don't usually notice it, but it's all around us, and without it life would be impossible. And it is literally "all around us"; unlike all the other fields of nature, the Higgs is nonzero even in empty space. As we move through the world, we are embedded in a background Higgs field, and it's the influence of that field on our particles that gives them their unique properties."

~ Sean Carroll, The Particle at the End of the Universe, p. 136

Wow! This statement explains, in part, why the media call the Higgs, the God Particle. First, it's a field, an expanse rather than one little speck. Second, and more significantly than we can imagine, it's everywhere. Like the air. Like the water for fish or shrimp or whales. Something all pervasive and without which everything we know and see and feel in the physical world would not exist. Not even us. It's not that we live within it, it's that without it, life as we know it, is not. Period.
Sounds like the New Testament's Acts 17:28 ~ 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.' Which also comes from an older source: Epimenides' Cretica ~ "But you are not dead: you live and abide forever, for in you we live and move and have our being." Either way, commentaries about a deity, a god. Physicists may argue the term God Particle is not apt, yet for ordinary folk, it may be the only way to grasp the expanse of what the Higgs seems to be.

Higgs Boson, part 3

The physicist John Wheeler once proposed a challenge: How can you best explain quantum mechanics in five words or fewer? ... When I posed the question about quantum mechanics, the best answer was given by Aatish Bhatia: "Don't look: waves. Look: particles." That's quantum mechanics in a nutshell.

 ~ Sean Carroll, The Particle at the End of the Universe, p. 33

I love the juxtaposition of the above image: a child reading Introduction to Quantum Mechanics as though it's a bedtime story. Children are often so much more capable of comprehending the Universe than the adults around them! To a child, Quantum Mechanics may well sound and read like the myths and stories they've heard before bed. What they hear is the same: a way to explain the universe.

Then there's Wheeler's question and Bhatia's response. If it's so simple, why wouldn't a child understand it? Why must we see them as difficult?

Higgs Boson, part 2

What came to Newton was the connection between the fall of the apple and the motion of the planets. ...the gravitational attraction that keeps the planets orbiting around the sun and the moon orbiting around the earth was the same force that pulls apples toward the ground.
                                                                    ~ Sean Carroll, The Particle at the End of the Universe, p. 118

Every now and again, I'm reminded that there was a time when gravity was not a broadly understood concept; when falling apples and the motion of the planets were considered not only vastly separate events, but also were so far removed from normal life that Newton's concept was a world-changer. The incredibly fascinating piece of information is that there are still things being discovered with that kind of impact.

Higgs Boson Particle, part 1

"When you're six years old, everyone asks these questions, why is the sky blue? Why do things fall down? Why are some things hot and others cold? How does it all work?" We don't have to learn how to become interested in science -- children are natural scientists. That innate curiosity is beaten out of us by years of schooling and the pressures of real life. ....studies show that kids love science up until the ages of ten to fourteen years old.
~ Sean Carroll, The Particle at the End of the Universe, p. 13

This passage could also be applied to the arts. Children are not only natural scientists, they are natural artists and musicians, sculptors and storytellers. Their curiosity is part of their creativity; their creativity part of their curiosity. They are willing explorers of the world around them in every fashion possible. Their experiments cover the gamut of their world: eating, planting, poking, prodding, putting together and taking apart. That's how they learn.

Scientists, both theorists and experimenters, continue to feed their own and each others' curious explorations and notions. As do artists of every ilk. Our society puts more value on one than the other without noting the connection between the two. 

As for schooling, well, it's purpose is to prepare students to be productive members of society. Some students are encouraged to continue expanding their curiosity and/or their creativity. Others are guided in a different direction. In using the term "beaten out of us," Carroll makes it sound as though everyone would have naturally continued on that path. That's simply not true. Every culture of which we are aware was made up of diverse 'jobs' that its members had. Few seem to have been encouraged within the cultural milieu to pursue being healers or artists or storytellers. Not everyone could or would do the job equally well. That's what creates a full and rounded society.